Rubidium-traced white-light etalon calibrator for radial velocity measurements at the cm/s level

TL;DR

This paper introduces a rubidium-traced white-light etalon calibrator for high-precision radial velocity measurements, achieving cm/s level stability and suitable for current and future spectrographs across a broad spectral range.

Contribution

The authors develop a cost-effective, turnkey, wide-bandpass etalon calibration system with unprecedented stability by combining passively stabilized etalons and laser locking, traced to a rubidium standard.

Findings

Achieved 10 cm/s uncertainty in single measurements at 4 Hz.

Demonstrated better than 3 cm/s precision when binning over 10 seconds.

Detected and corrected for a 13 cm/s daily shrinking of the etalon spacer.

Abstract

We report on the construction and testing of a vacuum-gap Fabry-P\'erot etalon calibrator for high precision radial velocity spectrographs. Our etalon is traced against a rubidium frequency standard to provide a cost effective, yet ultra-precise wavelength reference. We describe here a turn-key system working at 500 nm to 900 nm, ready to be installed at any current and next generation radial velocity spectrograph that requires calibration over a wide spectral bandpass. Where appropriate, we have used off-the-shelf, commercial components with demonstrated long-term performance to accelerate the development timescale of this instrument. Our system combines for the first time the advantages of passively stabilized etalons for optical and near-infrared wavelengths with the laser-locking technique demonstrated for single-mode fiber etalons. We realize uncertainties in the position of one etalon line at the 10 cm/s level in individual measurements taken at 4 Hz. When binning the data over 10 s, we are able to trace the etalon line with a precision of better than 3 cm/s . We present data obtained during a week of continuous operation where we detect (and correct for) the predicted, but previously unobserved shrinking of the etalon Zerodur spacer corresponding to a shift of 13 cm/s per day.